Teen Goes Missing With Neighborhood Girl. Now He Faces Life In Prison.

By Robert Winthrop - Updated March 15, 2019

In Colorado, a 16-year-old boy did the unthinkable, and now he has just admitted it. After Aidan Zellmer was accused of killing the adorable, 10-year-old Kiaya Campbell from Thornton, CO, things started moving quickly. On Friday, Zellmer pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and now faces a life sentence in prison when he gets before the judge to be sentenced next month.

Because his crime was so heinous, Zellmer was charged as an adult. He brutally ended Kiaya’s life on June 7, 2017, after they left her father’s home to go to a local shopping center. Zellmer beat the ten-year-old girl until her body was almost unrecognizable. Neighbors found her battered remains in a ravine the following day.

The autopsy revealed the obvious. The girl had been beaten to death by a brute. The Adams County Coroner’s Office autopsy report was undeniable and blunt. And the evidence pointed directly at Zellmer.

The report added that the adorable girl suffered wounds to her fingers – as if the 16-year-old was torturing her. She also suffered multiple blunt-force injuries to her head, which would have proved deadly to anyone, even most adults. Zellmer did not hold back his rage when he bashed the little girl’s head in.

Both Zellmer and Campbell were reported missing by Zellmer’s mother at 11:50 pm on June 7, 2017. Police promptly found Zellmer walking the streets alone. He claimed he had gone to a store to steal Pokemon cards and lost track of time and of Campbell while they were on their way home in the rain. Police were confused and doubted that the story was real. However, Zellmer continued to claim that he had nothing to do with Campbell going missing.

Police continued their search for the girl and issued an AMBER alert on June 8. A local found Campbell’s partially nude, beaten body abandoned in the ravine the next day.

It didn’t take long for police officers to gather enough evidence to point the finger of blame at Zellmer. When confronted with the discovery, Zellmer broke down with emotion. Police tested his clothes for residue and found plenty of blood evidence.

The children lived in the same house in the 12400 block of Forest Drive in Thornton, Colorado. Perhaps he was jealous of the little girl? His mother had been in a relationship with Campbell’s father at the time of the brutal slaying. But that hardly explains why he would take things this far. A screw was loose when it came to Zellmer’s motives.

Not only did Zellmer, who was 15 at the time, brutally murder the small girl, it seems she was also sexually assaulted as well. The teen got some kind of twisted pleasure from tormenting the tiny child as she wept.

Zellmer faced four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of sexual assault, and one count of sexual assault on a child. However, the state dropped all the charges except for the first degree murder one after he pleaded guilty.

In March, Zellmer received what he deserved. He got life in prison with a possibility of parole after serving fort years.